If Boudreaux van Winkle awakened after 20 years and heard that the New Orleans Saints had won the Super Bowl, it would be easy to see how he wouldn't believe it. If a history buff is convinced that the conspiracy theorists are correct and is presented with the evidence in this movie, it's easy to see how he wouldn't believe it — at first. What a tangled web is woven by writer/producer/director John Hankey. With layer upon layer of documented facts, circumstantial evidence, "reliable information," rumors, and thought-provoking questions he leads viewers through a labyrinth of deeds and misdeeds committed by the famous, infamous, well known and unknown players in a passion play of political intrigue that all adds up to one unmistakable conclusion.
Drawing upon the logic of Gary Allen's (author of None Dare Call It Conspiracy) reason to believe in conspiracy theories, Hankey seems to say, "Suspend you disbelief for 73 minutes and I'll tell you a story you won't forget!" Allen says there are really only two theories of history: conspiracy (everything is planned) or accidental (neither planned nor caused). He says, "If you believe it is all an accident or the result of mysterious and unexplainable tides of history, you will be regarded as an 'intellectual' who understands that we live in a complex world. If you believe that something like 32,496 consecutive coincidences over the past 40 years stretches the law of averages a bit, you are a kook." So, let's be kookie for a few minutes and not say "no" until we've heard the whole story.
In part one, Hankey takes a cue from Napoleon's quote that "History is written by the winners," and says, "Killers write the history — the victims are the ones that get written about." This segment focuses on a pawn surgeon performing a scripted autopsy (his first ever), lost brains, notes lost to fire, and dissent from the emergency room doctors at Parkland Hospital back in Dallas. This movie is full of questions and mysteries — like Laura Palmer was in Twin Peaks.
Part two opens with another question: "What does it look like when real power kills?" and begins to implicate a long list of suspects and co-conspirators by their own actions and comments. We are presented with questions that beg for answers; some we know are only rhetorical. Why two different caskets? Were caskets changed in the flight from Dallas to Washington? Why was Texas state law broken and evidence of a murder removed from the state? Why didn't experienced doctors perform the autopsy in Texas? What happened to the body in flight? Where did the President's brain get off to? Hmmm...
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Article comments
1 - a geek girl
See? That's why you have to follow the money trail. You'll get all of the answers--or not. But... I do love watching the way everything connects together--or not.
Hmmmm
I really like a good cospiracy theory. It's just fun. Loved this one. And this review is awesome!
2 - FCEtier
Thank you both for your comments!
An interesting tidbit from the DVD: Nixon, Bush, and Hunt all gave several different accounts (at different times) to the media on their whereabouts on 11-22-63. They must have been the only three people in America who couldn't remember where they were at 12:30 PM that day.
3 - S,Coogan
JFK II is a real mess. Trust me.
See our review of Hankey's works and disastrous interviews at CTKA.
4 - Trevor
He makes some very good points, I have read about Zapata Oil, which was started in 1953 and it was indeed part of a CIA operation, but Bush denies being part of the intelligence community until 1975.
5 - Mike S.
Wow, Mr FCEtier should have been on OJ's defense team. He really tried hard to bash the hell out of this documentary, perhaps a little too hard. Any person that doesnt believe there are sociopaths in very powerful positions doing "bad" things, is clueless.
6 - ronald w.
a little more than just a theory. i remember exactly where and the exact spot where i was standing when i heard of the assassination. and i believe the cleveland browns may win a superbowl one day even if it takes twenty years. my only consulation is i know God knows.
7 - Chris
I watched this documentary and it was extremely compelling. I started sharing these types of documentaries with family members and was told to try and disprove what I saw before accepting it as fact. Well, a lot of the evidence is circumstantial but logical. I'm having a hard to disproving some of the facts from the documentary though. If you can establish that the credibility of the government is in question just once (Iraq and WMDs), then I don't have to prove it twice. Everything they say should come in to question. That's logic.